Well done Tom....nice to see a fellow rod builder on the board ....i may do this with some guerilla tape, my AI mast has a bit of slop...wishing i had a metal lathe.....i could throw the mast on my spinner and do multiple coats of epoxy until its perfect, i do this with ferruls sometimes

I would think even just that little bit of slop puts more strain on things..

Tape would probably take up the slop as well, but being somewhat soft it may not provide a good surface for the roller bearing to work against.

Something I thought about - a wrap of D thread coated with maybe 5 applications of Permagloss would take up about 1mm and offer a rock hard surface for the bearings to roll on. That might be a simpler way to do this.

Something I thought about - a wrap of D thread coated with maybe 5 applications of Permagloss would take up about 1mm and offer a rock hard surface for the bearings to roll on. That might be a simpler way to do this.

Tom,I'm interested in this "D thread". What is it exactly? I'm looking for a better way to build up the TI's furling drum taper so that it fits the AI's mast tube.Great workshop setup BTW!

Nylon rod guide wrapping thread in size D. This allows you to keep the drum concentric without having to do any machine work. The coating is an ultra-hard aerospace moisture curing urethane developed by a former Boeing chemist, although there are likely others that would work equally well.